grassies on grass hoppers

I found a pod of grassies on the windward side of the city pond. A few of them were clooping surface scum. It was time to hook a grassie on a hopper. After a few half hearted cloops on the hopper I had a cruiser take a nice gulp, zing! I haven't caught enough grassies to say the code is cracked but I may be on the curve. Ever since I read Jeff Currier's "Grass Carp Code Cracked Forever" post I've been anxious to take a grassie on a hopper. While you're over at Jeff's blog be sure to read about his recent India trip fishing for mahseer.

Grass Carp

I hooked up with one of the backyard grass carp! These guys are tough to catch. I employed a handful of tactics and flies. I smacked them in the head with green hoppers, led them with green hoppers, tandem nymphs, worm flies, the hybrid, slow stripped bugs, and finally the answer was a classic clouser swimming nymph (CSN). I asked myself after catching this fish, shouldn't this be one of the first flies I throw at this fish? For a fish that is sitting or cruising about a foot under the water surface the CSN is a logical choice. The CSN has a slow sink rate allowing it to hover in the zone for a long time. This sets up nicely for leading a slow cruiser. With that, I'm gonna tie a few more CSN's and with any luck I'll harass a few more of these big fish.

The fight was great. This big fish jumped out of the water twice. Seeing grassies go airborn is quite spectacular. I hooked a couple last year that also went airborn but popped. This time I won. Man vs Grass Carp.

Whiskers

Mr. Whiskers lives in my backyard pond. I caught him last May and we had our 2nd date this week. I was tossing size 12 pheasant tail nymphs for the resident grass carp and hooked up with this old friend. It's nice to feel a strong fish again. Prior to hooking the cat I had a grass carp hooked and peeling line on my 5wt. The grassie bolted to the opposite side of the pond before the hook popped. While both fish are strong, the grass carp has speed and strength. The catfish lacks speed but makes up for it with brute strength. 

Driftless

Nate and I started the weekend fishing in the rain. Any further west and we would have been fishing in the snow. I think rain turns fish on. Perhaps it triggers them to eat before the water turns dark and turbid and eating becomes difficult. The front end of the rain produced some steller fishing. Sure enough, the next day many streams looked like Wonka's chocolate river. So we fished streams that run clear regardless of how many inches of rain fall. It's good to know your Driftless options. 

Sucker Migration

Quillback are difficult to catch. I drifted half my carp box to see if anything would stick. I drifted a few nymphs. In the end I caught a couple Quillies. 

Forgot my waders. Luckily I didn't need to move much and the water was 62 degrees. 

pics from the Driftless

Talon Streamer

Featuring Andy's streamer pattern, the Talon. I picked up a couple Talons from Andy last summer and have caught trout, smallmouth, white bass, and the illustrious sucker. Love the action on this streamer. 

Andy swinging a Talon

Riverside lunch

The wood canoe was built by Andy's dad in Winterset IA. A sweet canoe indeed.

Quillback

Quillback show up in large numbers on my local warm water creeks each Spring. They blend in nicely with the creek bottom -- until one turns sideways to swallow some food drifting by. Thats when the sun catches their armor, producing a flash of silver and gold. Quillback comprise a large portion of the biomass in many warmwater rivers. The Cedar River is no exception. They'll be in the creek for the next 6 weeks. Then they will return to the big muddy river. I nymph for them or bounce something buggy on the bottom. 

Another sign of Spring. Minnows sunning in the shallows. Soon the smallmouth will be up the creek chasing them down. 

Signs of Spring

Mind Control II

Maybe there is a little angel (or demon) sitting on your shoulder telling you to relax, telling you to lower your expectations and fool yourself into feeling good about something lackluster. If so, then I hope there is also a little demon (or perhaps angel) sitting on your other shoulder telling you to buck up, target the beast, expect something great.

Mind Control

In fishing, as in life, it’s all about expectations. If you are like me, you have to temper them from time to time. My mind often gets the better of me. I recreate my best days on the water, forgetting about the other 99% of the time. Sometimes reality lives up, even surpasses our best dreams; usually it doesn’t.

Control your mind, I tell myself.

One trick you can play on yourself is to fish a stream you have never fished before. One that doesn’t get much (if any) press. A stream that might not even have a fish in it. Lower your expectations.  Catching a big fish on these days is like winning the lottery. Catching anything is unexpected. The focus is on exploring, learning something new.  In many ways, this is what fishing is all about. It’s easy to loose track of that when you’ve gotten used to pounding fish on familiar water.

I thought about this today while on my way to a small stream. Hardly anyone fishes this river. The substrate is all sand. It is shallow and without much structure. The banks are lined with alder and it’s hard to get a cast in where you need to. I found a pod of very small brookies willing to take a streamer. It was nothing special. I fished something like eight or nine runs and caught fish in only one of them. But it was better than I expected. I'll be back, only with higher expectations. Damn, I hate it when that happens. 

Carp Flies

I'm blown away by the flies I received in the carp fly swap. I'm normally obsessing about trout on March 1st, but right now I'm thinking about Mr. Cyprinus Carpio. Again I'll reiterate my affinity to fish a fly tied by fellow carp fishers/bloggers. There's a story and person behind each fly and that's cool.

Carp Flies Tying Videos

"In the Riffle" has a great fly tying library. I was particularly happy to see some carp fly videos. Some goodies here.

Carp Flies Tying Videos
McTage's Foam Trouser Worm

streamers

Fill the box, feeding fish soon.

Piggy

I see this image in my sleep. More often than I'd like. Cabin fever, anyone?

electric smallie

i have a marker board on my office wall. i erased my to-do's and sketched a smallie. then hit some buttons in illustrator. it's what you do when you can't fish.

making tele-turns

Too much ice to fish the local spillway for pike. Those big pike will soon hit the shallows for some pre-spawn activity. I've been using the snow to carve some tele-turns on my backcountry cross-country skis. I picked up some new BC boots after last winter and boy a stiff boot makes a big difference. It may look like I'm falling onto one knee but that's the anatomy of a telemark turn. These guys showing how it's done. You've gotta embrace winter. 

Fly-Carpin Fly Swap

Carp flies are headed out the door for Trevor Tanner's fly swap. I tied a variant of Barry's Carp Bitter. I received one of Barry's Carp Bitters in the 2012 fly swap and the pattern proved irresistible to hungry carp. Plus, Barry is a carp fishing legend so I'll imitate as best I can.


Here's a look at the condition of my carp box. The chicken scratch notes indicate the tier or the pattern author. In some cases the original fly from the 2012 fly swap is still in this box. I'm pretty sure I caught fish on all of the flies I received in the 2012 swap. Pats Shaggin' Dragon hooked the most carp lips for me in 2012. What I really like about fishing the fly swap flies is knowing some background about the fly and the tier. Catching fish on so-and-so's fly creates an association. For example, I caught this mean old catfish on Ty Goodwin's Mean Ol' Dirty Frisco (MF'er) and this carp on Pat's Shaggin' Dragon. Both of these guys blog about carp fishing. In this way the fly box starts to connect to other carp fishing  aficionados. And that's cool.

Thanks Trevor for hosting the 2013 carp fly swap!

Winter Camp

A couple weeks ago my neighbor asked when we're going campin'. I arbitrarily said next full moon. Pics from Saturday night.

Between the Ice. Winter trout.

With an extended forecast for frigid temps Andy and I figured we oughta hit a trout stream before the pools ice up. We found some pools completely sheeted but enough fairways to get to a few brown trout. The best water on this stream are the big slower water pools – also the first water to ice up in winter. We tossed buggers and zebras. All our fish gobbled the bugger. Low and slow. Pretty good winter trouting.

Cast Cast Cast

Last fall Tim Pearson and I set out to create a video about the in's and out's of proper lining and casting methods for spey rods on small rivers. After I got home and checked the footage I realized 1) my camera ain't that good, 2) my editing software ain't that good, 3) I ain't that good, and 4) Tim can't speak in front of a camera without laughing hysterically. I also figured out what was good: Tim's casting and songs by the Kills. So, without much editing, I present to you: Tim Pearson, spey casting extraordinaire and 'Satellite' by the Kills. Enjoy it for what it is…

Forget what you’ve been told about winter trout fishing; fish a streamer

Put away your 6x tippet, #20 thread midges, micro-indicators and tiny split shot. Walk past that slow glide and toe-up at the start of a long riffle. Tie on a Dirty Mop and swing it through. Swing it slow, twitch it, jig it, let it sit there for a while.

This chunky Bow took a Dirty Mop like it had no choice. 

To be fair, this attitude may simply reflect the warmer winters we’ve had over the past couple of years. Last year was remarkably warm and fish were commonly moving long distances to chase down streamers in January, February and March. While this year has been substantially colder than last year, we haven’t experienced many nights of sub-zero temperatures and most days have reached the upper 20’s (at least). Yesterday, Dan H. and I were finding fish (both browns and rainbows) in the riffles and getting them to follow streamers into the shallows.

Dan and I have spent a lot of time fishing the winter season in Minnesota. Back in the day we fished in some very cold conditions (highs in the upper 20’s) during cold winter seasons (these were typically the warmest days of the winter). It seemed like all of the fish were hanging out together in large groups in the slow glides and deeper pools. It was pretty easy to see them and take them on a midge fished deep. In the last couple of years I just have not seen fish hanging out in these large clusters. Has anyone else experienced such a shift in fish behavior and distribution during the winter? Have you modified your tactics? Is this one silver lining of climate change?

Dan working a run with Charlie

 Or, will fish take streamers day in and day out regardless of temperature? A fish should not have to move long distances to eat a slowly swung streamer, so this is possible. The problem here is that neither Dan nor I have any interest in fishing when the daily high is below freezing (to old for this), so we probably won’t be testing this hypothesis any time soon. Is there anyone out there willing to fish streamers in very cold temperatures and during cold winter seasons and report back (Justin)?

Much credit for this change in my thinking and approach to winter fishing should go to Tim Pearson and his dedication to all things streamer as well as John’s obsession with targeting large trout, developing the Dirty Mop and giving me some for Christmas.

3 Flatheads

3 Flatheads

On this cold winter day I'm thinking of warm summer nights. With flatheads. Large circle hooks, heavy line, live bait, friends, beer, campfire. You know, summer stuff. 

Best fly of 2012

The samurai was the fly of the year for me. Black marabou tail, peacock body, grizzly hackle, and rainbow flashabou with black rabbit strip for the wing. I added some rubber legs to these and tossed in a couple of olive buggers. I would like to credit the person that developed this fly, but all I know is Trey Combs mentions this fly as the 'Bulkley River Samurai' in his steelhead fly fishing book and indicates that he first saw people fishing it in the late 1980's.  If anyone knows who is responsible for this magical creation, please let me know.

Merry Christmas John, these are yours.